Leaders, Managers and Makeovers
The Production of Teachers as Corporate
Professionals

Erica McWilliam

I recently wrote a booklet called How to Survive Best Practice. The text was written
to satirise the rhetoric of downsizing, de-layering, restructuring and risk
management--the corporate-speak that is the hallmark of the efficient and
effective workplace. In the booklet there are no academic references, no allusions
to definitive studies, no attempts to define progressive pedagogy, no exhortations
to teachers to be more critically reflective or to empower their students or to
help others reach their full potential. Rather, I deliberately used misinformation,
distortion and satire to make trouble for those who engage in professional
development under the rubric of 'best practice'. It is, therefore, the sort of text
one would not expect to find in any official list of sources for initial and in-
service teacher education.

I have since been approached by not one but several teacher educators
expressing interest in using this booklet as a reference in their foundational
Bachelor of Education subjects. In what follows, I want to consider how it might
have become possible to think that such a text could be valuable as a critical
source in teacher education. I will not be arguing that this possibility arises
because of declining standards in universities or low literacy levels among teacher
trainees. Nor will I argue that it is a simple matter of teacher educators adding
a bit of humorous garnish to an unpalatable pedagogical roast. The logic of my
argument is that what counts as relevant educative material for the social
production of teachers is changing in a number of key ways, according to new
imperatives to recast the teacher as a corporate professional.

I begin by examining the socio-cultural conditions under which a new kind
of corporate pedagogical identity is being produced. To do so, I make a double
move to include both a 'big picture' explanation for what is occurring, and a
close-up scrutiny of how the imperative to corporatise is at work in teacher
education policy shifts in Australia. I then consider how current shifts might
affect teacher education in terms of who the service providers might be and
where teacher education might be delivered and how. Increasingly, it seems
that the key providers will not be academics, pedagogical events will not
necessarily be on-campus, and ICTs (information and communication
technologies) may play a major part in the pedagogical processes involved. Of
course, it is clear that academics have long been losing a grip on the political
agenda for the professional development of teachers, but the link between

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